"This effect is generated by sending rapid, high-frequency electronic pulses to the finger motors, driving them to close more securely around an object," the company explains on its website.

The i-Limb Pulse is customizable with software. Doctors and users can tweak i-Limb Pulse’s behavior, programming it with specific grip patterns to fit the customer's needs. They then beam the new patterns to the hand with Bluetooth.

It comes in two sizes, to accommodate both genders. But a number of details have not been disclosed, including the price and artificial-skin options, which were available for the previous model.

According to Touch Bionics, i-Limb Hand has been fitted to more than 1,200 patients.

We're not sure the same amount of commercial success will follow another interesting robotic arm concept that hit us in the past few days: an arm modeled after an elephant's trunk.

Although its name includes the word "bionic," the Bionic Handling Assistant is more of an industrial-level robotics device – and still not available for sale – but the makers, Festo, say it will offer a safe and flexible way to move stuff around.

Because contact between humans and current industrial robots can be hazardous, BHA’s human-friendly trunk retracts on contact (or so the company claims). As such, it would be a safer way to transfer things in hospitals or at home.

The idea of a robotic arm that looks like a trunk so it doesn't violently murder you might sound silly. But a recent study by three German scientists showed that robotic arms could, in fact, violently murder you.